Best sectional in county history?

The Dearborn County Register

PAGE 12

SPORTS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019

thedcregister.com

Best sectional in county history?

Aurora’s Mike Holcomb lit it up in Red Devils’ unlikely 1969 run

By Jim Buchberger Sports Editor sports@registerpublications.com AURORA - One of the greatest underdog stories in Dearborn County sports history took place 50 years ago this week, when Indiana high school basketball still was king in the single-class state tournament era.

Lanky 6’4” senior forward Mike Holcomb, who overcame and excelled despite a limp from a malformed hip at birth, averaged a solid 22 points per game for the Aurora Red Devils, who struggled through a rollercoaster 10-10 regular season.

Wearing the plain white Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars hightop sneakers, knee socks and short shorts of the era - Aurora’s red-andwhite jerseys sported no lettering, adorned with only two stars across the chest - Holcomb tallied 109 points in three sectional games in March.

“I checked the stat book about a week later and found where he’d only missed 4-5 shots in the whole tourney,” attested Aurora native Bill Slayback, the first-year head coach at his alma mater that season.

“Unbelievable. I’ve been in basketball around here a long time, going back to the late 1940s. And I’ll tell you this. That was the greatest sectional I’ve seen anybody play.

Ever.”

Holcomb’s total fell only one point shy, statewide, to that of Indiana Mr. Basketball George McGinnis, the musclebound 6’8” phenom who led the Continentals of Indianapolis Washington to a 31-0 state championship that year, with help from fellow 6’8” IU recruit Steve Downing.

McGinnis went on to lead the Big Ten in scoring (29.9 ppg) and rebounding as an IU sophomore - before declaring financial hardship and signing a pro contract with the fledgling Indiana Pacers of the ABA, where he promptly won league MVP honors.

Big George later jumped to the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers as part of a 12-year professional career that culminated with his induction to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.

Most importantly for Aurora, Holcomb and his teammates - Gary Honchell, Jim Thatcher, Toby Kelly, Clarence Jackson, Steve Spencer, Jerry Miller and Mick McNimery, to name a few - came from nowhere and went the hard route to win three games for that coveted 1969 sectional title.

It marked the 20th championship in AHS basketball history, which dated back well before the Devils took their first two, consecutively, in 1925 and ’26.

“The thing that really motivated me, thinking back, was seeing a lot of ex-Aurora athletes and how bad they wanted to win,” said Holcomb, now 67 and still traveling the world for his corporate food safety consulting firm, last week from his home in Decatur, Ala. “They stood around the floor and cheered every shot, every rebound.

They all were important to the guys I looked up to, probably even 10 years before I played. Kenny Cash, Bob Fehrman, Bob Meyer, Dale Moeller... The list goes on and on.

“It was just such a tradition that we were trying to uphold. The gyms would sell out ahead of sectional time in those days. So they put loudspeakers up along the main street in town so the people who couldn’t get in could listen to the radio broadcast of the games. It was a different time and place.”

Hopes were understandably high at Aurora after future Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer Slayback returned to coach his alma mater in the fall of 1968, after a successful run at the nearby North Dearborn consolidation.

The only athlete ever to win 16 varsity letters as an Aurora Red Devil, Slayback turned down an offer from Adolph Rupp himself to play basketball at the University of Kentucky, signing to play, instead, for another college basketball

coaching legend, Branch McCracken, at Indiana.

A tough 6’2” guard who grew up in Aurora’s Cochran neighborhood, Slayback played his freshman year at IU under the shadow of big 6’11” future NBA star Walt Bellamy.

Transferring to Franklin College, he became the state’s collegiate scoring leader (26.0 ppg in 1960) and an NAIA All-American. Slayback also roomed with Sam Alford, coach and father of another Hoosier legend, recent UCLA coach Steve.

Despite all the excitement, things didn’t start well for the Red Devils in 1968-69, three years after graduating 6’2” guard Ray Kuhlmeier, then at Duke University after leading AHS to back-to-back sectional titles and a Sweet 16 berth in 1966.

Slayback, with the reputation of one tough taskmaster by many who played for and against him in those days, coached North Dearborn’s Vikings to back-to-back sectional titles the two previous years.

But his first Aurora team was blown out 81-64 in the opener, its first of two regular season losses to fierce Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference rival Lawrenceburg.

Starting 0-2, the Red Devils’ record dipped to 2-6 at Christmas time, then sagged to 4-8 with a second loss to future Indiana Hall of Fame coach Bud Bateman’s Lawrenceburg Tigers, 55-48.

But things started to pick up after AHS bottomed out at 4-9, with a 91-88 shootout win over Switzerland County igniting a run of seven-straight wins that got the Red Devils back on the plus-side, at 10-8.

Aurora then dropped two in a row just prior to sectional time to two of the area’s top teams - a 61-60 squeaker to future Hall of Famer Dave Porter’s Jac-Cen-Del Eagles, and 71-64 to Batesville in its EIAC finale - to take a lackluster 10-10 record into what was then a six-team sectional at Lawrenceburg.

Holcomb - who’d worn leg braces as a child and was such an afterthought on Aurora’s freshman team that he was left off the roster for the Red Devils’ 1966 Sweet 16 trip to Hinkle Fieldhouse - and his Devils didn’t scare anybody much against a field that included Lawrence-

AURORA BOREALIS 1969

Holcomb, plaqued by a bad hip since birth and an afterthought on the AHS freshman team, grew to average 22 points per game during Aurora’s 13-11 season in 1968-69.

AURORA BOREALIS 1969

Aurora High School’s 6’4’ Mike Holcomb (31) scores en route to a hardearned 27 points in the Red Devils’ 63-57 sectional championship win over Switzerland County in March, 1969, at Lawrenceburg them off when I left,” Mike laughed. down.”

He got the nod to play on.

Although clearly the Red DevNot that a gym rat like Holcomb ils’ best player, Holcomb also had hadn’t located other places to play acquired some other quirky habits basketball, just in case.

- such as occasionally elbowing his ”We knew the Taylor family, that own teammates in practice. had a farm with a big barn just outIn one early-season game vs. side of town on the road to Wilm- Madison, he took himself out of the ington - where the new (South Dear- lineup, claiming the old crackerbox born) high school is now,” he noted. Aurora gym was too hot and he “They cleaned out the barn’s attic couldn’t breathe. Slayback had a space and put up basketball goals. student open the window behind the We could play there in any kind of AHS bench, allowing his star player weather. You just had to mind the catch his wind. posts that supported the roof.”

AURORA BOREALIS 1969

Aurora’s unlikely 1969 basketball sectional champion Red Devils (13-11) included, first row, from left: manager Cecil Wallace, Rich Chatham, Ed Edwards, Jim Thatcher, Gary Honchell, Bill McKee, Steve Spencer and manager Dave Farrell. Second row: head coach Bill Slayback, Toby Kelley, Jerry Miller, Mike Holcomb, Mick McNimery, Steve Sandbrink, Clarence Jackson and assistant coach Greg Platt. burg and co-favorite and defending champion North Dearborn, plus Dillsboro, Rising Sun and Switzerland County.

But that freshman snub fanned the flames of Mike’s basketball passion, which saw him dribbling a ball year-round at the goals down at the old Aurora athletic field - today’s Little League and Pee Wee Football complex - on U.S. 50, just across the highway from his George Street home.

Neither 90-degree heat and humidity in the sweltering Ohio River Valley summers nor shoveling snow off the asphalt courts in winter discouraged Mike Holcomb from honing his craft.

Mike even figured out how to turn on the field lights to continue playing well after dark. School superintendent Kenneth Pitts became aware of the situation and called Holcomb into his office one day.

“I told him what I was doing, and that I always was careful to turn

It was inevitable, perhaps, that two such strong-minded individuals as Aurora’s star player and willful coach might disagree at some point.

Sure enough, it all came to a head with Holcomb’s two-game suspension around the time of the Red Devils’ lackluster 1-1 finish in the Whitewater (Cedar Grove) Holiday Tourney.

“Mike was a great kid, but he had a different personality on the floor,” Slayback said. “He had so much inner confidence that he never thought anybody could outplay him.

“But he had his own ways of doing things, which didn’t always agree with mine. He was used to doing things different, and some of those things were hard to believe.

“I’d seen him play as a junior, and he got pretty hot against us (Slayback’s former North Dearborn team), but he was pretty raw. He wouldn’t run plays so much as he’d just wander all over the floor. I finally had my fill. I had to shut him

From Holcomb’s angle, the suspension served its purpose.

“Coach Slayback was a leader, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way,” Mike noted. “He said what he meant, and there was no debate.

“The reason we got behind that season was that I took the position that all our players needed to be involved in the game. When the other guys weren’t always able to step up, I did it. Coach Slayback gave me a kick in the butt that made me do that.”

Whatever the method, the result proved nearly miraculous.

Aurora went 6-2 down the homestretch of the regular season to finish at .500, probably hoping to salvage some pride with maybe one longshot win in a that tough sectional.

Back in the day, the IHSAA state tournament sectional draw was so highly anticipated that it was announced throughout the state during the school week.

When Bill Slayback heard on the

radio that the Red Devils had drawn co-favorite Lawrenceburg in the first round, he was crestfallen.

“It never dawned on me that we had a chance to win that sectional,” said the former AHS coach. “Our draw couldn’t have been worse.

There were so many good teams and we drew the long route.”

Then Mike Holcomb, who’d excused himself from class, barged into the coaches’ office with a big grin on his face.

“Coach, we got ‘em!” exclaimed the Red Devils’ top scorer, brimming with confidence.

Anticipating a first-round matchup with Lawrenceburg’s athletic center Bill Sanders - who’d scored 22 points and given the Devils fits in the second of the Tigers’ two regular season wins - Holcomb boasted: “That big redheaded guy? He ain’t any good!”

To this day, Holcomb has no single point of memory about Aurora’s dizzying three-game underdog run to the ‘69 sectional crown.

“You know, it’s more a case of what I don’t remember,” he said.

“You talk about guys being in the zone. That’s what it was. You just let it go by. You don’t hear the crowd or the other players. You’re just single-minded. You know what you can do and you just go out and do it.”

When the center jump went up to open the Lawrenceburg sectional, Slayback remembers Mike Holcomb swatting Sanders’ first shot attempt deep into the bleachers.

“He was the kind of player who could score from inside and out,” the coach said. “He was a strong 6’4” and he could shoot. And, boy, he really could jump!”

Igniting a three-game sectional run second to none in county history, Holcomb finished with 36 points as Aurora vanquished the 15-5 Tigers, 70-67.

Well before the three-point arc came to high school basketball in 1987-88, Mike put up 14 field goals and 8 free throws to start a roll that finished with 70 percent shooting in all three tourney games.

As overjoyed Aurora fans stormed the floor in a wild melee after the final buzzer in that defeat of Lawrenceburg, a female teacher from the rival school came up to Slayback.

Instead of offering congratulations, she snarled: “Well, you just gave the sectional to North Dearborn!”

ND’s Vikings, coached by Kirby Overman - who went on to lead New Albany to the 1973 state title - needed to rally from a 22-point deficit to defeat Rising Sun, 80-77 in overtime to advance from the ’69 sectional first round. Slayback’s former team, the defending champion with a 17-3 record, was Aurora’s semifinal round challenge.

But Mike Holcomb still was firmly rooted in “the zone,” scoring a whopping 46 points on 18 field goals and 10 free throws to lead the Devils to the title game, 76-67.

See BEST, Page 11

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019

THE DEARBORN COUNTY REGISTER

PAGE 11

Kemper county’s first Junior All-Star selection

JIM BUCHBERGER/The Register

On Mike Holcomb’s May, 2011 induction to the South Dearborn Athletic Hall of Fame, the longtime Alabama resident invited all his former Aurora High School 1969 sectional championship teammates in attendance up to the podium, introducing each one individually.

BEST

From Page 12 “He had about 25 rebounds that night, too,” Slayback indicated. “And all this wasn’t against mediocre teams. All three teams we played in that sectional were better than us.”

Switzerland County, the new consolidation of Vevay and Patriot high schools just a year earlier, now stood between Aurora and its improbable dream of a sectional crown.

AURORA BOREALIS 1969 John Kinman, a talented 6’2” Aurora’s Mike Holcomb (31) and Lawrenceburg’s Bill Sanders guard who went on to play at Georgia Tech and still the best (44) jump center to tip off the 1969 sectional before a packed player ever to come out of that house crowd. Devils pulled off 3 upset wins to take the title. school, in Slayback’s estimation, Aurora’s 34-point regional drub- year ago. “It was just something starred for the Pacers - who also bing (78-44) by Connersville - I learned to deal with,” he said. happened to be led by Holcomb’s destined to win the 1972 state “I wore that leg brace for my first erstwhile Aurora coach, Gene title with Mr. Basketball Phil Cox three years of school. The hip Demaree. and future Purdue captain Gerald bothered me through elementary “Gene had coached me for my Thomas - proved the point. The school, high school and college. first three years of high school, Red Devils’ run ended at 13-11.

It limited my game a bit, to the and he knew my game, in and “Mike Holcomb got called for point I couldn’t go to the right out,” Mike said. “It was tough three fouls in the first four min- much. But I could go to the left playing against those guys. They utes,” Slayback recalled. “And side very well.” gave me some problems.” two of those were very questionMike admitted: “It’s been Saturday night’s sectional able. After getting a lot of breaks 50 years now, and I don’t think final saw Holcomb get early foul to win the sectional, we didn’t get about it all the time. But playing trouble, which wasn’t unusual one that day.” basketball kind of set the stage for the 6’4” Red Devil. But it Fifty years have come and for the my life. I learned a lot of held his scoring down for three gone since that unlikely 1969 lessons that I didn’t learn anyquarters, while Kinman was well season at Aurora, taking with it where else - in terms of work on the way to finishing with 27 the sting of that defeat, fortu- ethic and working with other points. nately. people as a team. Those things “But (backup forward) Jerry Bill Slayback went on to have sustained me over the years.

Miller, a kid who always was hot coach 20 years at Aurora, posting “I’ve been all over the world in practice, but never in games, 258 wins and leading the Red and worked with some big corgot it going driving he baseline,” Devils to the state’s Final 8 in porations. The same things transSlayback said. “He picked us up 1977, with standout guards Tim late to life. Basketball meant a with 19 points.”

Johnson and Dave Kinnett. lot more to me than maybe I Holcomb, not to be outdone, He finished his teaching and thought.” finished strong, putting up 27 of coaching career at South DearInducted to the South Dearhis own, on 10 field goals, 7 free born, after the 1978 consolida- born Athletic Hall of Fame in throws. tion, with a total of 8 sectional 2011, Holcomb took the opportuAurora, figured no better than titles, was an initial inductee to nity to invite all members of the the fourth-best team going in, that school’s Hall of Fame and 1969 Devils team in attendance was the 1969 sectional champi- joined the Franklin College Hall to the podium, introducing each on, 63-57. For the third time that in 1998. one. week, red & white-clad Devils Mike Holcomb followed SlayHe still sees with Bill Slayfans poured onto the floor in their back to Franklin, where he let- back every time he visits Indiwildest celebration yet. tered all four years, starting most ana, sometimes 2-3 times a year, Advancing to the regional of the time, and graduated with including Farmers Fair the first against Connersville in the hosts’ a bachelor of science degree in weekend in October, of course.

5,000-seat Spartan Bowl a week biology. He went on to earn a And he’s looking forward to his later, the clock struck midnight masters degree in entymology at AHS Class of ’69 reunion in on Aurora’s Cinderella story.

Texas A & M and worked in the August this year.

“What it did happens a lot corporate world before starting in basketball,” Slayback noted. his own successful consulting “There’s an awful lot of pressure firm, Technical Directions, Inc. on a team when you’re playing Married for 49 years to high your neighborhood rivals in the school sweetheart Linda (Knigsectional. Every time you’re able ga), a Manchester native, they’ve to win, it just gives you more lived in Northern Alabama, just a confidence - especially the way stone’s throw from the Tennessee it used to be.

River, since the early 1980s. All “On the other hand, if you’re three of their children, and five lucky enough to win the tourna- grandkids, live in Alabama. ment, you play more loose in the Holcomb’s bad hip bothered regional.” him his entire life, until he underAnd that’s not always good. went replacement surgery just a

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COLUMBUS, Ind. - Lawrenceburg’s Juliana Kemper was named the first IndyStar Indiana Girls Junior All-Star selection in Dearborn County history Tuesday.

Already committed to attend Indiana Wesleyan University after graduation, the Lady Tigers’ 5’10” guard/ forward earned All-State honors following her sophomore year, then averaged a double-double of 18.8 points and 11.1 rebounds for Coach Zane White’s 21-5 team this season.

Kemper will be part of the Blue Group on the 24-player Girls Junior All-Star roster, along with Darrian Carmean of Vincennes Lincoln, Maya Chandler of Triton Central, Rachel Loobie of Franklin Central, Tia Tolbert of Vincennes Rivet and Alana Vinson of Indy Roncalli.

Junior All-Stars will play two games against the Kentucky Junior All-Stars, tentatively set for June 1 at a Kentucky site and June 3 at an Indiana site.

The Junior All-Stars also will play one game against the Indiana All-Star senior girls on June 5, also at a site to be announced. All three games will be doubleheaders with the 2019 Indiana boys Junior All-Stars, who will be chosen during March.

Indiana Girls Junior AllStars’ six-player Core Group include Ella Collier of Danville, Nan Garcia of Jeffersonville, Jasmine McWilliams of North Central, Sydney Parrish of Hamilton

Southeastern and Kendall Bostic and Madison Layden of Northwestern.

Players listed as core group players will play in all three games. The players listed in the Red, White and Blue groups each will play in one game, the assignment for specific games to be announced.

Six players each were voted to teams labeled Red Group, White Group and Blue Group.

Red Group players are Sydney Graber of Homestead, Sydney Jacobsen of Harrison (West Lafayette), RaShaya Kyle of Marion, Alaina Omonode of West Lafayette, Keegan Sullivan of South Bend St. Joseph and Sydney Watkins of Heritage Christian.

White Group players are Khera Goss of Ben Davis, Maddie Lawrence of Winchester, Lindsey Syrek of University, K’Ja Talley of Warren Central, Taylor Westgate of Oak Hill and Kristian Young of Lawrence North.

Coaches for the Junior All-Stars have not yet been announced.

Indiana senior All-Stars will play the Kentucky senior All-Stars on June 7 at a site in Kentucky that has not yet been announced. The Indiana senior All-Stars will play Kentucky’s seniors again on June 8 in Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The Junior All-Star team is determined by the 20-member Indiana Basketball Coaches Association all-state

Juliana Kemper (Tim Ashcraft) panel in conjunction with its selection of the IBCA/ Subway Underclass All-State Team.

The selection process allows all IBCA-member head coaches to nominate players through the IBCA all-state process. Representatives from 16 regional areas from across the state, three district representatives from the three IHSAA districts (one each from District 1, District 2 and District 3) and the committee chair then meet to review the nominations, vote and finalize the selections.

IBCA/Subway girls basketball Senior All-State and Underclass All-State teams for 2019 will be released later this week.